BREAKALEGG

Like every week we post a book review on a subject related to acting, health, personal growth or anything related to the showbiz industry. In this case we talk about the book “How not to write a screenplay”.

As an actor you can gain invaluable experience learning from other aspects in the business; production, design, fashion, health, directing, coaching, editing and one of the most useful: screenwriting. Writers create the characters that we as actors have to bring to life by giving them dimension and layers that aren’t on the script.

The book covers areas in the script such as form, content and development. Including subjects such as numbering, margins, transitions, exposition, believability, twists, lack of clarity, and character.

This book is not the first or let alone the only one that predicts learning by example of

mistakes. But it does give you great insight to how such mistakes affect not only form but also the story as a whole.

It gets very repetitive after a while because they give quite a bit too many examples surrounding a specific mistake, and the writing style is very tiring if you are not really a screenwriter going through a proofread of your work.

Is it worth reading? If you are at all interesting in learning in depth about the scriptwriting process, YES. If you are an actor trying to find insight on to reading scripts with more knowledge or otherwise, Id say NOT. You are probably better off buying a different screenwriting book or scene study book.

Posted on September 1st, 2008 under Book Reviews • Tags: ACTING, BOOKS, REVIEW, SCREENWRITING, SCRIPTS. •  Print This Post •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback